On July 26, the Uttar Pradesh ATS unveiled alarming details, revealing that fake birth certificates were being produced in several districts to facilitate the illegal settlement of Rohingya Muslims. This revelation came to light after the UP Police interrogated Zeeshan, who had been arrested by Rae Bareli police for creating counterfeit certificates. Zeeshan, who was implicated in forging documents in Palahi and Nooruddinpur villages of Rae Bareli, was found to be operating on behalf of a gang. This gang provided him with a list of Rohingyas and Bangladeshis in need of fake identity certificates for their settlement in India.
Reports indicate that in Palahi village, Rae Bareli, which has only one Muslim family among its 4,500 residents, the accused allegedly produced birth certificates for 819 Muslims. In another village, Nooruddinpur, with a population of 8,000, authorities recovered birth certificates for nearly 12,000 individuals, all reportedly belonging to Muslims.
Zeeshan, who was arrested by the Police for producing fake certificates, worked as an operator at the Jan Suvidha Kendra. He issued these certificates before the UP Police uncovered the crime and launched an investigation. During interrogation, Zeeshan disclosed that the forgery operations extended beyond Palahi and Nooruddinpur villages in Rae Bareli. He revealed that he is connected to a network operating across Prayagraj, Kanpur, Unnao, Barabanki, and Lucknow.
The UP Police commented on the case, revealing that Zeeshan was given a list of individuals for whom he was instructed to create fake certificates. “The list included Rohingya and Bangladeshi men, women, and children. Zeeshan was specifically directed to list many of them as Hindu. He applied for approximately 19,184 fraudulent certificates and issued them using the login ID of Vijay Yadav, the Village Development Officer. These birth certificates could subsequently be used to generate other documents, such as Aadhaar cards,” the Police stated.
Zeeshan has informed the Police and UP ATS that he issued birth certificates solely for addresses in Nooruddinpur and Palahi. However, the network behind the scheme extends far beyond these villages. He revealed that the mastermind orchestrated the creation of lakhs of fake birth certificates through public convenience centres in Kanpur, Prayagraj, Barabanki, Unnao, Amethi, and Lucknow and facilitated the settlement of Rohingyas. The UP ATS has ramped up its operations in these regions in response to these revelations. The UP Police will now investigate a large number of birth certificates issued at a single address over recent years and is also working to identify who supplied Zeeshan with the list and its source.
After Zeeshan’s detention, Salon MLA Ashok Kumar asserted that Pakistan’s ISI is behind the issue of fake birth certificates. He claimed that these counterfeit documents were intended to grant citizenship to Bangladeshis and involve foreign funding. Kumar alleged that these fake birth certificates are used to create voter IDs and other documents, with some fraudulent individuals possibly having voted in the Rae Bareli-Amethi Lok Sabha elections. Higher officials have been briefed on the matter, and an investigation is underway.
The incident came to light after security authorities in Kerala arrested a member of the banned organisation Popular Front of India (PFI). Documents discovered during the arrest were traced back to Palahi village, Rae Bareli, and were issued through Zeeshan’s public convenience centre. The detained PFI member confessed that birth certificates for several of his associates in Kerala, Maharashtra, and Gujarat were also created at this location.
